Department of Molecular Biology

Extending the Frontiers of Biology

University of Wyoming’s molecular biology program provides students with the education and research experience needed to excel in biological research and biotechnology. The emergence of molecular biology has blurred the distinctions previously drawn between biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, zoology, and botany by identifying the many common, unifying principles that are the essence of all life forms.  The goal of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Wyoming is to introduce students to these principles and undertake fundamental research to extend the frontiers of biology.

But our students are prepared for more than rural America. The world is more complex, and solving problems and being competitive in the work place requires new skills and new solutions. Our molecular biology degree students are educated with tools for success in the 21st Century. They are as comfortable working in the small towns of Wyoming as they are in Los Angeles, Houston, or New York City.

MOLB Happenings

UW is in the process of migrating our websites to a new content management and hosting system. As such, MOLB Happenings for the web will not be updated until migration is complete. Please email mbiology@uwyo.edu to subscribe to our newsletter and we'll see you soon once migration is complete in March 2023!

From the Gatlin & Levy Labs

December 3 - 7, 2022 – Members of the Gatlin and Levy Labs attend Cell Bio 2022, the joint meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in Washington, D.C.

• Sami Abdullah Bashar, postdoc from the Gatlin Lab, presents a poster titled “Rotation of microtubule asters under confinement”
• Sourabh Sengupta, postdoc from the Levy Lab, presents a poster titled “Regulation of Nuclear Size under conditions of stress in Xenopus laevis egg extracts”
• Haritha Prabha, MOLB PhD candidate from the Levy Lab, presents a poster titled “Role of VRK1 in Nuclear Size Regulation in Xenopus laevis Extracts”

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From the Gigley Lab

November 30, 2022 – Dr. Jason Gigley PI of the Gigley lab gives his return from sabbatical presentation titled "Sabbatical To Learn About Disease Tolerance, A Critical Component Of The Immune Response".

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From the Bowman Lab

November 18, 2022 – Dr. Grant Bowman hosts the Fall 2022 virtual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology, Rocky Mountain Branch. Distinguished Lecturer, Igor Jouline, PhD, from Ohio State University presents "Amino Acid Sensor Conserved from Bacteria to Humans" and University of Wyoming undergrad students, Anna Steele and Chris Biggs, present a poster titled “DNA Isolation of Microbes from Produced Water in Central Wyoming”. Registration is closed for this meeting, but the May 2023 meeting will be live and in-person. If interested, email gbowman2@uwyo.edu, with the words "Rocky Mountain ASM mailing list" in the title of the message, to join.

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From the Department

November 1, 2022 – Dr. Bridget Decker to host UW Student Success' event Dinner with Direction: Food for thought: How Molecules Interacting Creates Life -- Understanding one basic molecular biological process allows us to understand how thousands of life-creating reactions occur in all life forms- from a bacterium, to a carrot, to a fungus, to a human, to a fish, to a grove of aspens, to a mosquito and beyond.Food for thought: How Molecules Interacting Creates Life -- Understanding one basic molecular biological process allows us to understand how thousands of life-creating reactions occur in all life forms- from a bacterium, to a carrot, to a fungus, to a human, to a fish, to a grove of aspens, to a mosquito and beyond.

Register Here

From the Park Lab

October 26, 2022 – Congratulations Ashley Park from the Park Lab! Her proposal “The Tunnels for Defense in the Plant Cell” was chosen for poster presentation at the Student Scholarship Showcase, to be hosted by the Center for Global Studies on 17 November 2022, from 12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., in the Classroom Building lobby outside room 129.

From the Park Lab

October 22 - November 7, 2022 – Dr. Eunsook Park, PI of the Park Lab, was chosen in 2021 for a Global Perspectives Grant from the UW Agriculture Experiment Station, which brought Dr. José-Antonio Daròs from CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain to UW to deliver a MOLB Friday Seminar in Spring of 2022. Dr. Park is now is travelling to France, Germany and Spain where she will deliver three departmental seminars and attend four research collaboration meetings with peers, including Dr. Daròs, at institutions across Europe.

From the Levy Lab

October 18, 2022 – Congratulations! Dr. Sourabh Sengupta was selected for an internship at the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR. This is a two week fully funded program, where he will travel to Little Rock to gain a hands-on experience on Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics. The aim of Dr. Sengupta’s internship is to gain an insight on the proteome levels in mitotic and interphase Xenopus laevis egg extracts under conditions of cellular stress. Every year this facility selects two interns (graduate or postdoc levels) for this internship program. They also organize proteomics workshops throughout the year for students of all levels. In April 2022, Dr. Sengupta had attended such a workshop, which triggered his interest in incorporating proteomic studies in his current research.

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From the Gatlin Lab

Publication: October 6, 2022 – Thao Nguyen, Eli J. Costa, Tim Deibert, Jose Reyes, Felix C. Keber, Miroslav Tomschik, Michael Stadlmeier, Meera Gupta, Chirag K. Kumar, Edward R. Cruz, Amanda Amodeo, Jesse C. Gatlin & Martin Wühr: Differential nuclear import sets the timing of protein access to the embryonic genome. Nat Commun 13, 5887 (2022). Importantly, Tim Deibert, an undergraduate in the lab deserves special congratulations for his first co-authorship!

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From the Boothby Lab

Publication: October 1, 2022 – Kenny Nguyen, Shraddha KC, Tyler Gonzalez, Hugo Tapia & Thomas C. Boothby: Trehalose and tardigrade CAHS proteins work synergistically to promote desiccation tolerance. Commun Biol 5, 1046 (2022)Nguyen, K., KC, S., Gonzalez, T., Tapia, H., Boothby, T.C.: Trehalose and tardigrade CAHS proteins work synergistically to promote desiccation tolerance. Commun Biol 5, 1046 (2022)

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From the Boothby Lab

Publication: September 28, 2022 – Jerry A. Holmberg ,Stephen M. Henry, Thierry Burnouf, Dana Devine, Susanne Marschner, Thomas C. Boothby, Scott R. Burger, Stella T. Chou, Brian Custer, Neil Blumberg, Donald L. Siegel,S teven L. Spitalnik: National Blood Foundation 2021 Research and Development summit: Discovery, innovation, and challenges in advancing blood and biotherapies. Transfusion. 2022.

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From the Boothby Lab

September – October

• New Awards:
  • NASA R3 - Effects of Chronic or Fractionated Ionizing Radiation Exposure on Tardigrade Multigenerational Growth
  • NASA Exobiology - Identifying Sequence Features and Properties of a Tardigrade Disordered Protein that Promote Multiple Mechanisms of Desiccation Tolerance
  • NSF - Water and Life Interface Institute

• Meetings & Presentations:
  • IDPseminars - Shraddha KC was selected for a talk, Sourav Biswas and Maxwell Packebush selected for posters
  • Biophysical Society - Shraddha KC, Sourav Biswas, John Ramirez and Vincent Nicholson will present posters

• Other Happenings:
  • Congratulations! Shraddha KC was selected for a the Mary Mead Graduate Fellowship for Women in Agriculture
  • Welcome Jacob 'Jake' Loeffelholz! Jake has studied and published on tardigrade biology for several years. He is studying how tardigrades cope with high temperatures as well as exposure to microgravity.

From the Levy Lab

September 22, 2022 – Congratulations Dr. Sampada Mishra, for the successful defense of her dissertation titled “Nuclear F-actin: a novel regulator of nuclear shape”.

From the Boothby Lab

September 14, 2022 – Thomas Boothby was interviewed by Wisconsin Public Radio interview on The Larry Meiller Show by Clara Neupert for “Scientists researching how life interacts with water”

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From the Boothby Lab

September 9, 2022 – Thomas Boothby was interviewed by The World Public Radio by Stephen Snyder for “How water bears survive without water”

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From the Boothby Lab

September 9, 2022 – The Boothby Lab recently received a NASA grant to study the effects of water loss on tardigrades. One of the goals of NASA’s Exobiology Notice of Funding Opportunity program is to understand how organisms can adapt to, colonize and survive in new or extreme environments. The Boothby Lab addresses this by looking at how these tiny little tardigrades are able to survive without water. Thomas Boothby expects the grant project to start in October and run through September 2025.

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From the Park Lab

September 2022 – Congratulations to graduate students from the Park Lab:

• Seungmee Jung for earning the Y cross ranch fellowship
• Jesse Kaleku for earning the Eldon and Josephine Johnston Family Graduate Fellowship in Agriculture award
• Ashley Park for earning the Mary Mead Graduate Fellowship for Women in Agriculture

From the Gomelsky Lab

September 1, 2022

• Congratulations Giang Pham for passing her Prelim Exam with flying colors!
• The Gomelsky lab welcomes Justus Nelson as a new M.S. student and Moe Saqib as a new M.A. student. Justus will work strengthening the fleet of listerial bactodrones to fight cancer. Moe will explore the connections between mental health and human microbiome.
• Mark Gomelsky and Qian-Quan Sun have been awarded an R21 grant from NIH to develop new optogenetic tools for noninvasive neuronal regulation.

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From the Gatlin Lab

Publication: August 17, 2022 – Sami, A. B., & Gatlin, J. C. (2022). Dynein-dependent collection of membranes defines the architecture and position of microtubule asters in isolated, geometrically confined volumes of cell-free extracts. Molecular Biology of the Cell, mbc-E22.

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From the Wall Lab

August 2, 2022 – Congratulations Dr. Kalpana Subedi, from the Wall Lab, for the successful defense of her dissertation titled “Friend in need: Social cooperation repairs damaged siblings”.

From the Gatlin Lab

August 1, 2022 – Congratulations Dr. Sami Abdullah Bashar, from the Gatlin Lab, for the successful defense of his dissertation titled “Mechanisms of Microtubule-based Force Generation”.

From the He Lab

July 29, 2022 – Congratulations Dr. Yohannes Getiye Estifanos, from the He Lab, for the successful defense of his dissertation titled “Understanding CARD9-related innate immune response in chronic inflammation and cardiopulmonary remodeling”. Dr. Estifanos has accepted a postdoctoral position at the National Institute of Health and will soon move to Maryland.

From the Department

July 29, 2022 – UW Department of Molecular Biology is hosting the Front Range Cytoskeleton Conference on July 29th from 10 am – 6 pm at the Business School Auditorium.

• Kaylan Shilling, PhD candidate will give a talk entitled "Subcellular “Net”working in Alphaproteobacteria Driven by N-terminal Molecular Recognition Feature"
• AsimicA CEO Nik Mushnikov will give a talk entitled "The asymmetric polarity of microbial cells as a novel biotechnological tool"

From the Levy Lab

Publication: July 4, 2022 – Mishra, S., Levy, D.L. (2022). Nuclear F-actin and lamin A antagonistically modulate nuclear shape. Journal of Cell Science, 135(13):jcs259692. Also, an image from the paper was selected for the cover of the issue!

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From the Bowman Lab

July 2022 – The Bowman Lab's NSF Proposal entitled "Bacterial stem cells for enhancing biodiesel production from lignocellulosic feedstocks" was formally recommended for funding.

From the Levy Lab

July 2022 – Dan Levy and John Oakey received the following grant from NASA for $100,000: On-Chip Tissue Models for Experimental Carcinogenesis Under Controlled Radiation Exposure.

From the Bowman Lab

June 2022 – Yasin Ahmed PhD Candidate from the Bowman Lab, gave a 5 minute Rapid Fire Presentation at ASM Microbe in Washington D.C. entitled "Phase-separated membraneless organelle modulates cellular asymmetry via phosphoregulatory pathway in Caulobacter crescentus". Further, he began his second term as American Society of Microbiology Young Ambassador for the State of Wyoming.

From the Wall Lab

June 26, 2022 – Dan Wall will serve as invited session chair at the Gordon Research Conference on Bacterial Cell Surfaces held at Mount Snow, Vermont, June 26-July 1.

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